


This is cautious?

by valerie1972



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Before the Dawn, F/M, everyone's an adult here, insignificant character death, not-graphic depictions of violence, seriously tame innuendo of consensual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valerie1972/pseuds/valerie1972
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his insistence that he accompany Evelyn to track down Samson, Cullen has second thoughts about the wisdom of watching her put herself in danger right in front of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is cautious?

They hadn't fought together before, not for real. 

There had been many practice sessions in the yard at Skyhold -  more than he could remember with enough individuality to count. But her actual skill in battle was something he had only glimpsed in a panic by firelight on the night that Haven fell and the brief moment on the day they met when he didn't even know who she was and certainly had been too distracted by demons to pay proper attention. Back then, he might have thought her lovely and brave and admirable, but he hadn't yet loved her with an intensity that sometimes frightened him.

Sparring with him, she rolled and leapt and feinted with daggers and once, memorably, his own sword after she disarmed him. He thought that those had let him see her mettle, when the two of them danced in the way in which they were most comfortable (at least in public).

(And that time she had disarmed him, she was cheating, he was positive.) 

But she had conceded to his insistence that he accompany her to track Samson, and now, here they were, and she dove into each fight with a casual disregard for her own safety that brought his heart to his throat more times than counting. He could, and had tried to, take point, reasoning that his breadth and solidity and  _actual armor_  made him a finer human shield for those who followed them than her lithe speed and the flexible leather she foolishly thought protected her own skin. 

Maker, parts of it were  _cloth_ , how hadn't he noticed how  _flimsy_ everything protecting her was? He was going to have to talk to Dagna about adding more defensive enchantments if he ever wanted to sleep a full night again - he had few enough of those as it was. Coming with her was supposed to help him sleep  _better_ at night, not worse.

No, on further observation, it wasn't foolish for her to rely on such armor, despite how inadequate it looked to an overprotective man used to being encased in steel and silverite. Her ability to move protected her, and the flexibility of what she wore allowed her the armor of her own skill. Realizing this should have made him feel better, but intellectual knowledge seldom managed to override gut-wrenching fear.

Again, she thrust herself forward into the fray, using the recognition of their foes as both weapon and armor. He saw the flash of her grin each time some half-addled poor bastard shouted "It's the Inquisitor!" in a panicked tone that indicated that he or she had just now realized what a huge error it had been to follow Corypheus. She grinned, Cullen suspected, because in the moment it took for his former brethren to express their shock that she had come for them herself, she could plant an arrow or six in the eyes and mouths that widened in fear, and this allowed their soldiers to avoid one more potentially lethal fight.

(They were her soldiers, really, if he was honest. He trained them and directed them, but it was her most of them fought for.)

A deep feminine chuckle welled up behind him, and he turned to the knowing smirk that he was positive Vivienne wore by default around him lately. "Goodness, my dear Commander, you're as white as a sheet." She laid a hand on his forearm. "Do try not to distract her with your worry. She is already being more cautious than usual because of your presence."

"This is  _cautious_?" he asked, barely recognizing the squeaking tone of his own voice. Maker's breath, if Samson's followers didn't kill him outright he'd have a heart attack watching her fight them.

The wicked,  _wicked_ enchanter laughed at him again. "Of course this is cautious, darling. Normally she would be rolling  _toward_  them with those silly daggers rather than rolling away from them with the  _far_ more sensible bow. Our lovely Inquisitor rarely does things by half-measures, now, does she?"

She normally rolls toward them with daggers. Of course she does. 

"You're not helping," he ground out as he glared at his own toes.

To think that he'd once  _liked_ Vivienne.

\----

Later, as he held Evelyn in his arms in the lamplight of their tent he finally gave voice to part of his concern.

(That other people called it  _their tent_ gave him a thrill he would never ever admit to anyone,  _ever_.) 

"Maker's balls, Ev, how can you just stand there, closing the rifts, while demons come at you from all sides?"

She laughed, which was not quite the reaction he'd hoped for. Surely she knew that his concern was genuine and not a joke?

"Oh, Cullen, I've been a terrible influence on you!" she finally said, which clarified nothing at all. His face must have betrayed his confusion, because she did explain after a few seconds.

"When we met, the most blasphemous thing you ever said was 'Andraste preserve me' and now you're taking the Maker's body parts in vain." She placed an open-mouthed kiss on his collarbone. "His  _naughty_  body parts."

He huffed, more than a bit dismayed that she not only made light of his concern but also attempted to distract him with physical attentions that she knew he had a hard time resisting. "The state of my eternal soul is not the question, Evelyn. The state of your worldly body is. How can you just ignore demons of all kinds heading toward you while you focus on a rift? You don't even arm your bow or hold a single dagger, you just... stand there!" That squeak from earlier was back and he hated it.

She propped herself up on one elbow, her face terribly grave and her voice now lower than usual. "Do you trust your people?" she asked, apropos of nothing.

"Of course!" What else was he supposed to say? "But what do the Inqusition soldiers have to do with my question?" he added, although he had an idea where she was going and he didn't like it at all because he knew that she was right and he was just now starting to feel like an absolute idiot.

She huffed, and despite himself he couldn't help but notice that her breasts had escaped the furs that had hidden them from view until a moment ago. Maker preserve him, he was such a weak man.

"I ask, because  _I_  trust  _my_ people." She studied him seriously for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth from one of his to the other. "I learned, that very first day in Haven, that each time I manage to interrupt a rift the demons become weaker, which makes them easier for our troops to kill. If I can do that, it saves the lives of the people who are fighting them. And Bull, Varric, Dorian, the others I keep close - they know this."

He sighed, realizing yet again that her experience in the field trumped his theoretical knowledge - and its accompanying fears - almost every time. "And so they keep the demons from getting to you, so that you can reduce the risk to everyone else."

He was rewarded for this revelation with the sunniest smile he'd seen from her all day in this mess of a landscape. Her body relaxed against his, and it was only then that he realized how much his concerns must undermine her confidence. Nothing Vivienne said had prepared him for this particular truth, and he needed to examine it, and its implications, further.

He took a deep breath - he loved her strength, her abilities, her indomitable drive to not only protect the innocent bystanders but also those who followed her. Needlessly worrying over her safety had made him forget those things for a few hours, and now they came rushing back all at once. She was thoughtful and competent, and despite the fact that he had always imagined himself as a boy to be the bold knight come to rescue the fair maiden he had to admit that in the end it was the maiden who had rescued him. He  _was_ an absolute idiot, and opened his mouth to tell her so.

But while he was musing, she took her lower lip between her teeth and her eyes became those of a predatory cat. "I do believe that I need to remind you that I know how to care for those under my protection, Commander," she purred. Or perhaps that was just the cat imagery making him interpret it thus.

(He was beyond caring about cats, imagery, demons, rifts, or much of anything else approximately three seconds after she blew out the lamp.)


End file.
